


the song only lasts three minutes

by brella



Category: Morning Glories
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 05:22:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5527433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/brella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I know you’re just ignoring me because you’re trying to look cool,” Jade says. “It’s not working. You’re a fucking loser.”</p><p>Or: An AU where Jade got to go to the party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the song only lasts three minutes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sharoncarters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharoncarters/gifts).



Jade’s eyeliner is thicker than usual. And it has wings. And she’s smiling, and it’s showing all of her teeth.

Ike takes a hearty swig from the bottle of booze in his hand. He’s not sure what it even is anymore—he stopped keeping track about an hour ago.

“I literally can’t believe I’m about to ask this,” Hunter says at his side, “but are you okay, man? That’s, like, your third bottle.”

Ike tacks on his best lascivious grin, propping his elbow up on the slightly taller boy’s shoulder and flopping his head over so that his cheek gets squished up against his arm. He bats his eyelashes up at Hunter.

“Don’t tell me you’re _worried_ about me, dear,” he coos.

Hunter wrinkles his nose and shrugs him off. “Forget it.”

“No, really,” Ike continues, drooping closer to him still, smirk growing. “If this is _truly_ a show of love and concern from someone who is usually so _emotionally reticent_ , I must _cherish_ it.”

Hunter gives him a withering look, pointedly sipping from his red plastic cup of 7-Up. Ike shrugs at him, guileless, and he narrows his eyes, clearly not buying a crumb of it.

“Look, you can die of alcohol poisoning for all I care,” Hunter finally says, turning back to the room of their gyrating, very inebriated—well, Ike hesitates to call them peers, but it will have to do. “Literally would make no difference to me. At all. But at least don’t waste the last night of your life staring at Jade like a creep. It’s kinda pathetic.”

“This coming from the reigning pathetic monarch of staring at a girl like a creep?” Ike scoffs. “I’ll be sure to file _that_ one away.”

“That’s different,” Hunter snaps, flushing red. “Never mind. Just—go talk to her, or something; jeez. You’ve been ignoring her ever since we busted her out of the basement.” He glances away, quickly drinking more of his soda in a clumsy attempt at concealing his investment in the situation. “I mean, I don’t think she cares, or anything, but. You know. At least try not sucking for a second.”

Ike flattens a hand against his own chest. “My God, Hunter. Rarely have I heard such artfully phrased encouragement. But you misunderstand. I don’t _care_ about Jade. I don’t care about _anyone_ here, actually. Surely I must have gone over this with you. Ad nauseam.”

“Oh, _yeah_ , right,” Hunter mutters under his breath. “Whatever. You’re on your own. I’m gonna go find Casey.”

“I’ll bet you are,” Ike leers, waggling his eyebrows. Hunter’s whole face scrunches up with hatred, and Ike, in response, twiddles his fingers at him in a wave. “Don’t party too hard, son; you know what the Sprite does to you.”

“It’s 7-Up,” Hunter snaps, “and shut up! I’m leaving!”

“Thank God!” Ike cries, dancing to the new wave song pulsing through the room in jubilation. “Freedom!”

He’s not going to admit it, ever, but truthfully, Hunter had won that one. To dispel this fact, he continues doing the mashed potato alone.

Until Jade shows up.

He pretends not to notice, and does a fine job of it, too, pivoting away from her for a brilliantly executed pelvic thrust. He even mouths along to the song, as though it is so enthralling that he has yet to notice her presence. A mortal blow would be dealt to his reputation were it to get out that he noticed Jade Ellsworth first.

“I know you’re just ignoring me because you’re trying to look cool,” Jade says. “It’s not working. You’re a fucking loser.”

“False,” Ike replies lazily, raising his arms over his head. “I am the atom of coolness binding this sea of mediocrity together. Were I to leave, the party would unravel into a bingo night within seconds. Don’t make me test it.”

“None of that makes sense,” Jade says. “Especially the part about—atoms? What the _fuck_? Do you know what science _is_?”

Finally, he acknowledges her, catching her eye over his shoulder and raising a flirtatious eyebrow. He tilts his sunglasses away from his eyes, propping them up on top of his combed hair (though the past several hours of sweat and motion have loosened it considerably, and some of it is now grazing his forehead).

“Oh, a little physiology. Care to be educated?” he asks.

There’s a second of brutal silence.

“That was bad,” Jade tells him frankly.

Ike claps on the beat. “It certainly was.”

“How much have you had to drink tonight?” Jade demands. “A fucking horse trough of vodka?”

Ike holds up a few fingers. He’s sure they must convey some sort of number, even if one of them is curled.

“It is a party, Jade,” he drawls. “At parties, people have this thing called _fun_? Perhaps your sheltered provincial upbringing never familiarized you with the concept.”

“Oh, for _fu_ —”

“Shall I introduce you?” Ike cuts her off, spinning around to face her, more openly than he had planned. His shoes squeak on the floor.

His tongue is dry, though it really has no reason to be. His eyes sink down her body and linger on a hole in the knee of her fishnet tights.

She gives him a venomous simper.

“Why, don’t mind if I do,” she says in that sweet farm girl type of voice she always puts on to either annoy or amuse him, depending on the situation. “Oh, stop dancing, you dumbass. You look more stupid than anyone here.”

Ike gasps. “Even Hunter? I’m sorry; I just can’t bring myself to believe it.”

Suddenly, her fingers close around his wrist. The tip of her ring finger halts right over his pulse. Her whole palm is warm, and sends a jolt of something all the way to his elbow. He forgets to close his mouth, staring unabashedly at the freckles on the inside of her wrist, at the threading, shiny white scars that cross a vein. They wouldn’t be visible in any other sort of light.

“Come on,” she mutters begrudgingly. “Let’s go someplace quiet.”

“Jade, really, this whole privacy thing is such an antiquated convention—it’s really much more exciting to do these sorts of things in public—”

“I’ll do your fucking execution in public if you don’t shut up,” Jade snaps, and it’s a weak comeback—definitely not one of her best—but as far as “last thing Jade Ellsworth said to me before we wound up making out”-isms go, it’s not so bad.

Oh, but he’s getting ahead of himself. They  _do_ get some Coke first, and they _do_ argue about the meaning of life for at  _least_ twenty minutes. Afterwards.

Anyway, it doesn't matter; he'll take it—anything to lock down the strange and vulnerable words that have been stirring in his throat and making him feel sick ever since he watched Casey untie her chafed hands last week, watched Hunter help her to her unsteady feet, watched Casey break Jun’s nose over the whole business and call it, along with the caveat that she would fully murder him should she ever cross paths with him again, even. Anything to silence whatever makes it all the way to his teeth when Jade’s bitten-down fingernails scratch dull lines across the sides of his neck and she very nearly numbs his tongue with the aftertaste of her cinnamon breath mints. Anything to replace the hammering of his wicked heart with the carnal beat of the bass and the drums in the speakers. Anything at all.

She doesn’t cover up the bruise his mouth leaves on her neck. She wears it like a prize, and it goes from red to purple to brown and back to the lively pink of her skin, and he swears he sees her pressing down on it in class a couple of times, as if trying to make it last longer.

**Author's Note:**

> LOVE YOU, LILY.


End file.
